Comparative analysis of spectro-temporal receptive fields, reverse correlation functions, and frequency tuning curves of auditory-nerve fibers.

The tuning properties of single auditory-nerve fibers (ANFs) are characterized with spectro-temporal receptive fields (STRFs), reverse correlation functions (revcors), and frequency tuning curves (FTCs). Measures of tuning and latency from the STRFs and revcors are largely comparable to the traditional measures of tuning from FTCs and measures of latency from peristimulus time histograms (PSTHs), but several important differences are found. As is well known, revcors can only characterize low (< 6 kHz) best frequency (BF) units, whereas STRFs are able to characterize all units studied (BFs ranging from 0.26-23 kHz), except for a few very low-BF examples. Whereas tuning bandwidth derived from revcor exceeds that measured from FTCs at all BFs and increases with sound level. STRF bandwidth is comparable to FTC bandwidth, except at low BFs, and is stable with sound level. The STRF may reflect nonlinear properties of auditory-nerve fibers such as refractoriness and two-tone suppression that are absent in the FTC and revcor characterizations. The principal drawback of the STRF is its narrow dynamic range.